Earth Light

Guy Gilles's 1970 French film follows a young man who decides to leave his disordered life in Paris. He returns to Tunisia, which he left at six, meaning to find again the place he was born and the memory of the mother he lost as a child. The film does not build that search as a straight journey. The present and memory interleave, the same place repeats under different light, and the cutting is deliberately broken; Gilles used this manner throughout his work. Edwige Feuillère, Annie Girardot and Micheline Presle appear in small parts. The narrative gives little room to dialogue; the weight is in colour, music and faces. Gilles stayed at the margin of French cinema for a long time and his reassessment came late. Who it's for: those who like French cinema of the seventies and formal experiment. Who it's not for: viewers expecting narrative; the film carries the disorder of memory into its structure.